23 clubs have won the UEFA Champions League tournament since its inception, with Real Madrid being the team to win it most, fourteen times, including the first five. Only three other clubs have reached ten or more finals: Milan, Bayern Munich and Liverpool.
Clubs from ten countries have provided tournament winners. Spanish clubs have been the most successful, winning nineteen titles. England is second with fifteen and Italy is third with twelve, while the other multiple-time winners are Germany with eight, the Netherlands with six, and Portugal with four. The only other countries to provide a tournament winner are Scotland, Romania, Yugoslavia, and France. Greece, Belgium and Sweden have all provided losing finalists. English clubs have won 14 European Cup/Champions League titles in total, with Liverpool leading the way with six triumphs. Man Utd have three, Chelsea and Nottingham Forest have two, while Aston Villa has won it once.
Having already claimed a fifth Premier League title in six seasons, and added the FA Cup this season, City are the first English club to win such a treble since Manchester United in 1999. That same month 24 years ago, City won the English third-tier play-off final on penalties against Gillingham. Now they have established themselves as England’s dominant side and have finally added the biggest prize in European club football, two years after losing to Chelsea in their first final.
The match was watched by owner Sheikh Mansour, who made a very rare appearance at a City game as his team capped their rise from also-rans to superpower in the years since he bought the club in 2008.
Twelve years after last lifting the trophy with Barcelona, meanwhile, Guardiola joins an elite club of coaches to have won the Champions League three times.
Manchester becomes just the second city to produce two different winners of the competition, after Milan.
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